The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music would like to express its deepest sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of Ms. Whitney Houston. She was a brilliant talent whose legendary voice will be missed.

Also kudos to friends/colleagues of the Clive Davis Institute: Najee the 1′s music manager Marat Berenstein of Hit Me Music and article author John Leland.

Read the article HERE.

Last month, NARM President Jim Donio and Bill Wilson, NARM’s Director of Digital Strategy & Business Development, came to lecture to the students in Professor Lauren Davis’s Introduction to the Music Business class.

NARM stands for the National Association of Recording Merchandisers. The non-for-profit trade association’s role is to “advance the promotion, marketing, distribution, and sale of music and entertainment by providing its members with a forum for diverse meeting and networking opportunities, information, and education to support their businesses, as well as advocating for their common interests.” Their members are key decision makers responsible for 90% of the music marketed, sold and distributed in the United States.

Professor Davis remarked: “Jim and Bill’s visit far exceeded everyone’s expectations….My students and I are sincerely grateful for their willingness to share information and readiness to answer a wide variety of industry questions. We look forward to their return visit.”

You can read a full write-up here on NARM’s site.

Hundreds of NYU students were given free tickets to attend the grand event.

Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music students got the special opportunity to sit right up front in the orchestra pit seats, where they were only an arms length away from the superstar as she did a Q&A with MTV host Sway, and then performed some her classic hits with a full band and debuted new material from her forthcoming album also titled The Element of Freedom, set to be released on December 1st.

We created some unique opportunities for our students to get involved with this event.

During the Q&A, Clive Davis Department students were specially selected to Alicia questions.

In addition, NYU students enrolled in Adjunct Professor Kobi Wu-Pasmore‘s Curating Live Music Events course were given the special opportunity to observe and assist the production and design team for rehearsals and sound check for this event.

Lucky students!

It was a tremendous success, but don’t take our word for it. Here’s the MTV roundup of the event. Here’s Billboard‘s article. New York Magazine. And Parlour Magazine. and Newsday.

(All photos on this page were taken by Adjunct Professor Jonathan Fine of Finegold Music).

Never one to remain behind-the-curve on musical technologies, Brian Eno – a musical visionary whose work is regularly studied as part of the curriculum here at The Clive Davis Department – has just released his second iPhone app, the pragmatically-titled Trope.

As the follow-up to his first app Bloom, Trope was co-created with Burning Shed’s Peter Chilvers.

Touch and tap your iPhone screen and you get to hear – and manipulate – transforming ambient sounds and complementary moody visuals.

We’ve always been proud as an NYU department to bear the name of our principal patron and Sony Music Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Clive Davis.

This week we’re exponentially proud as Whitney Houston’s brand new I Look to You album – which Mr. Davis co-executive produced – hit the top spot on the U.S. Billboard 200 Albums chart, selling 305,000 copies.

Whitney’s albums, taken as a whole, have spent forty-six weeks at #1 on the same chart: an all-time record for any female artist.

Congrats also goes out to I Look to You‘s co-executive-producer Larry Jackson, Senior VP A&R at RCA Music Group – Larry’s been a terrific guest lecturer in our department; most recently he came by to drop some wisdom on Professor Jonathan Fine’s students in our A&R class.

As an undergraduate program teaching students about the art and business of creating and selling music, we’re admittedly intrigued by the possibilities for Timbaland’s application Beaterator, created for the Sony PSP in tandem with Rockstar Games, and due out in late September.

According to news reports, the purpose of Beaterator is “music creation.” In that sense, it’s not being billed as a “video game.” Its purpose, supposedly, is more educational and designed to inspire artistic creation.

Of course the superstar producer-performer is also banking his dreams on his contemporary relevance. He told Billboard recenty: “Guitar Hero teaches the history of certain old groups, but mine is more like what people hear on the radio –Timbaland, Timbaland, Timbaland.”